Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said he didn't agree with all of economist Don Drummond's cost-cutting recommendations.

By:Kenyon WallaceToronto Star, Published on Tue Mar 27 2012

The Liberal government has rejected outright nine of economist Don Drummond’s 362 cost-cutting proposals in its budget Tuesday, including recommendations to scrap all-day kindergarten and cut Ontario’s 10 per cent price break on electricity bills.

While the budget contains measures related to about half of the recommendations in Drummond’s Feb. 15 report, the government says the remaining proposals on reform in the public service are still under consideration.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said he didn’t agree that all of Drummond’s recommendations should be followed in order to balance the books by 2017-18.

“This is the most sweeping budget this province has seen and it’s the right approach,” Duncan told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “We do not agree that we should fire 10,000 teachers. We’ve found money elsewhere. Remember, Mr. Drummond didn’t address assets, he didn’t address the revenue side.”

The minister stressed that increases in health spending over the next two years will be contained to 2.1 per cent annually, which is below Drummond’s recommended rate of 2.5 per cent. “It’s very consistent with Drummond, and we’ve used all of the very conservative assumptions that he and others have made on revenues, for instance.”

The Liberals pledged to continue with its 30 per cent tuition grant, which provides up to $800 per term for full-time undergraduate university of college-degree students, a program Drummond said should be discontinued.

Also contrary to the Drummond report, the government will not freeze the Ontario Child Benefit at its current maximum of $1,100. Instead it says the payment will increase to $1,210 in 2013 and $1,310 in July 2014.

And unlike Toronto Transit Commission riders, GO Transit commuters won’t have to pay for parking at train and bus stations, as the Drummond report recommended.

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said that the Liberals didn’t go far enough in implementing Drummond’s recommendations and simply cherry-picked the proposals they liked and ignored those that they didn’t. As such, he said his party would not support the budget.

“It seemed that if Mr. Drummond recommended a way to grab more revenue, they were all for it. But if he recommended an elimination of a spending program, they rejected it,” Hudak said after reading the budget. “The Liberals have chosen to continue to spend … Anything that actually had to do with real tough decisions on spending restraint was taken off the table by the Liberals, ignoring what Mr. Drummond said.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the budget leaves her party with a “serious decision” to make.

“For people who are worried about jobs, about wages that aren’t keeping up with the cost of living, about a health system that leaves them waiting longer and longer for services that they need, this budget has very little to offer,” she told reporters. “The budget talks about the cost of everyday life but it lacks a plan to tackle the growing cost of everyday essentials, like electricity.”

Horwath did not say whether her party would support the budget.

In the days leading up the budget, the Liberals said they would ignore 16 of Drummond’s recommendations, but highlighted only nine in Tuesday’s fiscal plan. A government spokesperson said the remaining seven pertain to health care spending over time frames longer than the budget’s three-year outlook, so were not included.

Plamen Petkov, Ontario director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, gave the budget —to the extent that it incorporated Drummond’s recommendations — a tentative thumbs up.

He said his organization would support both the government and the opposition parties with any efforts to live up to the “tough mandate” outlined in the budget.

“We see that there are actually quite a few recommendations from the Drummond report underpinned in this budget,” Petkov said. “The big question for us is, okay, government is setting up a plan, are they going to be able to deliver?”

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.